Thomas Mortlock On Cat Model Misunderstandings
Catastrophe (or ‘cat’) models are essential tools for estimating losses from natural disasters. With the rise of climate risk management as a discipline in its own right, efforts are underway to harness these tools to guess the effects of human-induced warming on hurricanes, floods, storms, and other catastrophes. However, in the rush to develop effective climate risk analytics, we may be trying to force cat models to do things they weren’t designed to – and promoting a flawed way of thinking about the link between climate change and financial loss in the bargain. Thomas Mortlock, from reinsurance broker and risk solutions company Aon, joins Climate Proofers to explain what cat models can and can’t do, unpack the relationship between climate risk and insured losses, and get into the knotty problem of slow-onset events, like sea-level rise. Sign up to climateproof.news for a twice-weekly dose of climate adaptation & resilience news and insights. Questions? Comments? Email Louie at louie.woodall@loremedia.info